Occupy Wall Street protesters took up arms - eight of them - in their march on Monday. Carrying craftastic models of vampire squid high above their heads, in homage to Matt Taibbi's description of the bank as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money” in Rolling Stones, 2008.

Harsh words, right? I mean, vampire squids are totally awesome!

The vampire squid inhabits the cold, high-pressure environment of the deep sea. Light is absorbed by the water, making it perpetually twilight. A vampire in twilight, that's not horrifying, that's dreamy, amiright? Don't hit your head if you swoon.

I know, it's cute. Image from Wikimedia Commons

We don't know much about these little dudes because they dwell in that most mysterious of spots, the deep sea. Vampyroteuthis infernalis means vampire squid from hell, but it's not even technically a squid. Or an octopus. It's got an order all of it's own.

They have a consistency similar to a jellyfish, quite gelatinous. Like many jellyfish, it swims by shooting out a jet of water behind it to propel it forward, but it has a couple of fins for manouvering. It has eight arms and two extra arms which hide in its 'pockets' and can extend the length of its body when needed.

Plus, these troopers hold the title for the largest eyes relative to their body. An individual about six inches long has an eye an inch across, about the same as a full-grown dog. All the better to see you with, my dear. They also have a receptacle behind their eye for spermatangia, the tough sac of sperm ejaculated from the specialised arms of a lover. Just imagine date night

The most brilliant behaviour is their bioluminescence. These guys glow!

When startled, squid may shoot out ink to confuse predators. That's not much good when you live in twilight, so instead the vampire squid shoots out glowing balls that dazzle and confuse. Over a thousand discrete bright particles within a matrix of mucous. Picture that, you're out looking for a snack late at night, feeling pretty hungry, you think you smell something good and suddenly there's some wacko waving glowsticks and snot in your face!

Another defensive ploy is to go into pineapple pose. Turning their bell-shaped tentacles over them, they completely change their shape (going kind of inside out). They light up some spots on their head which animals may take for eyes, which glow and then shrink as if the animal has swum away. Even if you didn't buy that the animal was gone, looking at the videos, you wouldn't want to eat that.

Inside out, not so delicious. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh... and about that quote Occupy Wall Street are marching for. The vampire squid's diet seems to consist of molluscs, fish and crustaceans. As far as we know, it's not a blood sucker, and Tree of Life. describes the funnel as absent. That must make it hard to stick said metaphorical blood funnel into anything, whether it smells like money or not.

Stephen Fry gave respect to these sweet deep sea entities in this clip from QI, shown at Deep Sea News.

In the QI link, they say the bioluminescence explosion is like John Barrowman! You might know Barrowman as the immortal Captain Jack Harkness from Dr Who and Torchwood, but blow me down, that captain can dance!